Since Bobby Lashley was drafted over to RAW as the ECW world champ, the title was vacated. Tonight, we will see CM Punk battle Marcus Cor Von while Chris Benoit will meet Elijah Burke where the winners of those two matches will square off at Vengeance: Night of Champions to find us a *new* ECW world champion.

Between pay-per-view revenue, live attendance and merchandise, this show should gross in the neighborhood of $46 million. WWE claimed 80,103 fans from 24 countries paid $5.38 million to attend. The gate is legit and it is a new company record. I cannot confirm the attendance, but they had sold all 70,000 available tickets in the weeks before the show and more were released in the final seven days. I believe the building was set up for 75,000, but they were also selling SRO (standing-room only) tickets, so that number may be legit. It likely broke the attendance set at WrestleMania III of 78,000 fans, which the company inflated to 93,173 and has since become part of legend. The most-attended WWE show in history remains the 1992 SummerSlam at Wembley Stadium, which drew 80,355. The biggest gate in wrestling history remains the Antonio Inoki retirement show in 1998 which made over $7 million at the Tokyo Dome. WrestleMania XXIII will likely do around $1 million in merchandise, and the expected 740,000 domestic buys would net the company $22 million. It should be noted that it still falls below the December 30, 2006 Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz fight both in the gate ($5.4 million, which is actually fantastically impressive because that show only drew 1/6 the attendance) and the domestic buyrate (1.05 million buys). Worldwide, WWE should pull in 1.2 million buys.

They replay Vince McMahon’s introduction of Aretha Franklin from WrestleMania 3 as she returns to sing the National Anthem.